Modern Britain

At one point at work last week, in the office which serves as home for eight hours of my day Sunday to Thursday, there were six of us; a Nigerian, a Romanian, a Slovakian, a Pole, a Nepalese and an Englishman. We work together for the sake of the common good of the Company and do an excellent job working as a team. As in all walks of life, there are disagreements and sometimes cultural differences cause misunderstandings, but, by and large, we are a cohesive unit, laughing and joking through the stresses and problems our industry throws at us every day. Twenty or thirty years ago, if someone had told the inhabitants of my industrial/rural town, set as a zirconia stone atop the golden Moonraker county of Wiltshire, that the demographics of the town would expand to include such a rich and diverse influx of migrants seeking economic stability and a life different to that which was their's back home in Africa, Europe and Asia, then a typical Swindonian would have looked upon such a statement with disbelief. The town had a thriving Italian and Polish community back then, but the diversity that is resident in the town now was something that was confined to the big cities of the United Kingdom; Birmingham, London, Manchester, Liverpool and their ilk.

As someone who finds anthropology fascinating, it has been interesting to see how my migrant

colleagues have adapted to their new life in Blighty. The most marked observation is in their use of language and their coming to terms with how the English they learned at school is so very different to that which is actually spoken by the indigenous Briton. Add to that the myriad of regional accents and it's no wonder that a simple phrase or instruction can be met by a blank look of incomprehension; imagine coming across someone with a broad Scouse, Geordie or Glaswegian accent for the first time and suddenly those hours of sitting in a classroom in Bucharest learning how to recite "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper" in a clipped Oxford English sibilation must seem like such a waste of time. As they settle into their new life, over time, the English of the phrase book is replaced with regional vernacular, aitches are dropped like a native and full integration is achieved when an expletive muttered under their breath is one which is in English and not their native language; I am cheered to hear one of my foreign colleagues call out "bollocks" when something goes wrong, as it means that they must be at home in their new English environment.